Corus: no choice over job losses

Corus personnel director Allan Johnston has told Personnel Today that the
five proposals put forward by the unions during the 90-day consultation period
on the 6,050 steelworker job cuts were well planned but were not enough to
reverse the management decision.

"The unions put a lot of work into them. But the market is such that we
had to take out 3 million tonnes of capacity," he said.

Countering union criticism that the three-month consultation had been a
waste of time, he said the management board had already looked at all the
possible options. "If something had come forward that was sensible and deliverable
we would have done it… but personally I would have been surprised," he
explained.

He added, "The consultation process has been very useful in terms of
how to deal with the impact on the staff, looking at how to deal with the
consequences and working with the Government and unions in a tripartite way to
mitigate the effect."

Now that the mandatory consultation process is over, Corus is accelerating
the job loss process. Redundancies start this week and will finish in July
2002.

Johnston said the company is working with the Employment Service Job Shops
in each of the affected areas and added that other companies such as Ford in
South Wales and Nissan in Sunderland are interested in the skills of Corus
employees.